10 Alternative Wrestling Awards For 2023

4. Most LOLWCW Moment Of The Year

Seth Rollins Shinsuke Nakamura
WWE.com

It's not exactly fair to invoke WCW as shorthand for terrible - the promotion was fun and good even it was sh*te in the early '90s, and peak Nitro was seminal wrestling telly - but it's just part of the millennial wrestling lexicon.

And it is for good reason; because it was a promotion that once booked Kevin Nash to win a match between Kidman and Ric Flair after hitting Mike Awesome with a powerbomb, it probably is fair to describe something with brain-melting logic as a 'LOLWCW' moment.

In a very strange and dumb segment - one that, weirdly, wasn't slaughtered online - Shinsuke Nakamura beat up Seth Rollins in a live pre-tape. Now, that may read as an oxymoron, but that is precisely what happened.

In October, Shinsuke interrupted a live Rollins segment by appearing on the tron. It was a ruse - Shinsuke then attacked Seth in the ring - but the pre-tape kept rolling. The pre-taped Shinsuke - as in, Shinsuke being recorded ahead of time - started to count to 10 after the actual Nakamura attacked Rollins with a steel chair. This angle was done to explain to you thick tw*ts - that is WWE's opinion of you, to be clear - the rules of a Last Man Standing match.

The thing is, before he was eventually laid out for the count in a second beat-down, Rollins at first got up at the count of seven. At which point pre-tape Nakamura, who unless there were actually two of them recorded this in advance, stopped counting. Did he just correctly guess when Rollins would get up?

How embarrassing would it have been had Rollins ended up getting the best of Shinsuke in this exchange?

You won't have seen a more illogical or fake-feeling angle all year, just blisteringly stupid television, and yet Triple H will get all the credit in the world for his coherent storytelling.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!